she’d actually jumped into his arms and decided that had been a bit forward, so she disengaged from him. With reluctance. Tugging at her ponytail and stretching her gaze along the floor, she couldn’t prevent a giddy grin.
“I think I forgot my name,” she confessed. And then when she looked up into his eyes, and he delivered her a waggle of eyebrows, she lost it and broke into a giggle. “Seriously, that was some kind of powerful kiss.”
“I could give you another one. Unless that one was too much to handle?”
“Oh, I can handle a lot. Bring it.”
Ry’s smile collided with hers. And with a giggle, Indi again jumped up to fit her legs about his waist. He reached around and cupped her derriere, all while diving deep into her.
Had she come here to make out with the man? It hadn’t been her intent. She’d had questions. That had been answered. Most of them. Yet the flexing of his pecs and abs against her torso enticed her to abandon her previous worries and simply fall into the moment.
Hot and firm, his mouth. And he knew exactly how to kiss her. She clung to his wide biceps as he opened her mouth in a deep, lush takeover. He wanted to be inside her? Yes, yes, and oh, baby, yes, please.
“You are some kind of delicious, Princess Pussycat.”
“I like when you call me that. But it reminds me of my tattered dress that will never get clean. How could you have thought me a princess when I must have looked like—”
The next kiss was immediate and urgent. And it felt like the admonishment it had been meant to be. She’d been going down the route of complaining and putting herself down, and Ry stopped her. Bless him.
Clutching at his hair behind his neck, she curled it around her fingers and felt her toes curl within the strappy gladiator sandals. Had a kiss ever been so sensual? Targeted to her very core? Every part of her reacted to every part of him. And if she could get any closer to him she would, but she was already clinging to him for all the sweet, hot contact he would give her.
When they finally parted, she lingered in his arms this time, enjoying the feel of his warm chest against her torso and she hugged him. She wrapped her fingers about each of his biceps. So strong. Then she remembered how he’d wielded the sword as if a Viking warrior.
And those creatures. Collectors. From Faery.
Indi slid down from the embrace and tugged at her skirt. “You’re very sneaky,” she said.
One of Ry’s eyebrows lifted in question.
“That was a well-timed kiss. And the follow-up kisses distracted me from the question I asked you. But I can’t forget. What I saw that night is seared into my brain.”
She gave one of his biceps a squeeze, feeling the strength in his pulsing reaction. She felt sure many men who worked out were as solid and pumped as him. But did they wander about a place where faeries and humans overlapped carrying big swords? And did they...change?
“What are you, Ryland?”
He stepped back from her, swooping a hand over his hair, a devastatingly sexy move that spilled the brown locks over an ear and forward against his neck and under his jaw. Indi’s fingers wiggled, anticipating another glide through that delicious darkness.
And yet he looked down at her with an expression she couldn’t figure. Challenge? Or an intense anxiety that he tried to bolster with silence?
“Are you a faery, too?” she prompted, unwilling to ignore her curiosity. “Because, you know, I am on board with all the faery stuff. Apparently.”
He was the last example of what she’d expect a faery should look like. But then, those black sparkly things had never been in her mental catalog of what should and shouldn’t be a faery. The few she’d thought to see in the backyard garden had been no higher than her index finger and had looked human and had sported glittery wings.
He exhaled heavily, one of those disapproving sighs that could go either way. Resignation or acceptance.
Indi dared to meet his gaze again, and this time he nodded and shoved his hands in his front pockets. Walking to the windows, he stood there for a while. The streetlights beamed and, while the sky was yet light, the moon was nearly full. It hung above the distant spire of the Eiffel Tower. A pretty picture. Made even more intriguing by the silhouette of the handsome yet seemingly troubled man standing before her.
“Ryland?”
“Just Ry, okay?” he said softly. “That’s what all my friends call me.”
She was relieved he had added her to his friends list. But after that kiss, and the following one, and then the next one, she had been hoping for something a little more than merely being friends.
“The things I told you,” he said, still facing the window, “about FaeryTown and what I’ve been doing, have to be kept in strictest confidence.”
“Of course. Like I’ve said, no one would believe me anyway.”
“I’m not sure why I told you. Well, I had to. You were there. And for some reason beyond my ken you could see Faery. And, of course, if you believe in faeries, then you should understand there’s a whole lot of other sorts out there that are best believed as only myth.”
“Like vampires and witches?”
He nodded and turned to her. “Does that freak you out?”
Indi gestured calmly with splayed hands. “Do I look freaked?”
Now he narrowed his gaze at her, and there was that growing smirk again. “You don’t. But maybe you’ll go home and have a real good think about everything we’ve discussed and then the freak will pounce on you.”
She shrugged. “Possible. But I’d like to fall on the side of me being a smart woman who can rationalize and decide for herself what is real and what is not. Show me a faery? I believe. Tell me vampires exist? Next time some guy flashes fangs at me, I’m going to guess it would be wise to run. Not sure what to do if I ever meet a witch, though.”
“You wouldn’t know it if you had met a witch. Or a vampire, for that matter. Unless he flashes his fangs at you. And then? How would you know if he’s real or one of those poseurs that dances in the clubs and has a weird fetish?”
“Exactly. The world is filled with oddities. But what about mermaids?” she asked suddenly as her thoughts drifted. “Do they exist? Oh, please, tell me they do, because I so want to see one of those someday.”
“They do, but you’d never want to meet one. They’re vicious.”
“Seriously? Have you met one? How do you know about all these creatures, Ry? If you’re not a faery...?”
“I’m part faery,” he said suddenly. And before Indi could ask for clarification, he added, “But mostly werewolf.”
He should not have stopped kissing her. Because then the question had been asked.
Ry had a thing about the first kiss. A man could tell a lot about a woman from that kiss. Awkward and graceless? There was always room for improvement. Sloppy and aggressive? Nerves could be the culprit, or just an overzealousness with which he didn’t want to deal. Firm and accepting, yet also the woman jumped into his arms and wraps herself about him like she was made to fit his body?
Mercy.
His heart was still thumping from that incredible contact. And he wished his erection would chill. Because there were more important matters. Like his confession about being part faery, part werewolf to a perfectly human woman. He never did that. And on the one occasion he had told all? He’d known her for months, and her name was Kristine, and he trusted her implicitly with his secret because she knew all too well that secrets